Friday, May 4, 2012

I just want to go to sleep!

Believe it or not I didn't forget about this blog! I haven't had much (about work travel) to say lately. For a while I just going back to the same few places, staying at the same hotels, flying the same flights...nothing interesting. More recently my travel basically stopped. I've only flown 9 flights, had 4 hotel stays and 1 train trip so far this year! After working so hard to achieve status last year I've basically given up any hope of maintaining it for next year.

Not traveling has actually been fairly refreshing. I love routine and it's been great to be able to maintain one. I can go grocery shopping and not throw out bags of lettuce because they go bad, I can bring lunch into the office because I actually have stuff at home and I even have time to workout!

That being said, traveling this past week to Suffern, NY was fun! It was great to get out of the office for a few days. The nice thing about going to Suffern is that we actually take the train into New York City. My colleague and I split up once we arrived in the city and met with our respective close friends. It was great to catch up and have a nice a dinner. After dinner I met back up with my colleague and drove the 45 minutes or so to the hotel. By the time we got to the hotel it was probably 10 or 10:30. I wanted to read for a bit and then go to sleep. I tend to be cold and had a chill all day. With the weather getting warmer everything (train, restaurant, hotel) all seemed to react by cranking up the air conditioning. I tried to turn the heat on/air down but when I tried to adjust the thermostat nothing happened! There were no numbers/temperatures/etc. I pressed the up and down arrows, the on/off button, etc. I held the buttons down, I pressed them repeatedly with no change. When I called the front desk they, naturally, assumed I could not figure out the complicated 3 button system and spoke to me like an idiot. After explaining I had, in fact, tried pressing the arrows they sent someone to my room. Naturally they sent security...because, security usually fixes thermostats. After pressing the same buttons with the same (lack of ) results the (fairly creepy) security guy said he was going to go speak to maintenance. At this point it's about 11 and I'm hoping I can go to sleep in the next few minutes. Of course it take 15 minutes for him to get back to me but just to tell me I've been moved to a different room.  Now I was chilly, but it wasn't that bad. I had just wanted to knock it up a few degrees. I didn't want to change, repack all my stuff and move at 11:15 at night. I explained the (still creepy) security guy that I would be fine and I didn't want to move but thank you anyway and proceeded to get in bed and finally go to sleep. Unfortunately what the security guy forgot to tell maintenance I was still in the room so when they came knocking at 11:30 at night I was less than thrilled and they were surprised to see me! But after explaining how much I just wanted to go to sleep they left and I finally did.

Hopefully I'll be back here occasionally. I have a trip to Nashville planned and my colleagues and I are looking forward to hitting the town. Should also have an exciting announcement coming soon!